Experimental Feature Pushes Google's Arts & Culture App to the Top of the Free Apps Chart

Google’s Arts & Culture app rocketed to the top of the free app charts over the weekend after one of its experimental interactive features went viral.

Better known for its relatively staid virtual history exhibitions and digitized artworks, the app’s sudden popularity is down to the addition of an option near the bottom of its scrolling interface which asks users, “Is your portrait in a museum?”

On tapping the button, the app asks for access to the device’s camera and then prompts the user to take a selfie. Their picture is then compared against thousands of digitized artworks in Google’s historical database using facial recognition technology, after which a series of closest matches are returned.

The find-your-art-lookalike feature, which was actually added to the app in a December update with little fanfare, apparently drew interest only recently after some users and celebrities began sharing their results on social media.

The option only appears to be available to U.S. users at the moment, but if you’d like to give it a go, you can download the free Google Arts & Culture app from the App Store.